


Don’t Put Dirt On My Grave

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: come alive [9]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Thieves, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-22 04:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12473944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: When Caroline survives an attempted hit ordered by her own organization, she finds herself in the last place she'd ever expected: Klaus Mikaelson's safe house.





	Don’t Put Dirt On My Grave

**Author's Note:**

> Klaroline AU Prompt: Klaus and Caroline often butt heads and this day is for those scenarios. Supernatural or not, not so friendly rivals or bitter enemies, this day is for works where the sparks fly because they are at odds.

_Did you mean it when you said I’d be safe with you for one night?_

_Where are you, love?_

* * *

Compromised. It left a sour taste on her tongue. Taking a careful breath, Caroline tested her bruised ribs with a grimace. Everything hurt, but at least she could finally confirm that nothing was broken.

The couch she’d fallen asleep on was amazingly comfortable, and she sighed against the upholstery. The apartment had surprised her, the feeling of a lived in space unexpected in a safe house. She hadn’t had the energy to snoop, but most safe houses were sterile, the atmosphere chilly with lack of use. This one smelled faintly of acrylics, but the feel of it wasn’t as empty as she’d expected.

She supposed somewhere there was a bed, but after dealing with her injuries she hadn’t had the energy to move. Not when she’d only had hours to rest. There had been a blanket left out on the back of the couch, and she’d simply pulled it over her and gone to sleep.

She gave the clock on the wall a quick glance. She’d slept for four hours, more than she’d thought she’d get and still less than she needed. It was probably the most she could hope for tonight. Shifting until it was a little easier to breath, she stared at the darkened ceiling, and tried to plan.

Enzo’s warning had come seconds before impact, her partner’s voice tightly controlled as he’d told her to run. She wondered if he thought she was dead, because Caroline had seen the faces of her attackers, had recognized them. Matt, who liked his coffee with four sugars and Tyler, the guy in accounting who flirted with his eyes and always ordered two hamburgers with too many onions

The hit had been an inside job.

Caroline had never tried to fool herself into thinking she worked for the right side of the law, but she had rules. Never steal from the innocent. Never use children as collateral damage. Never betray the client. Three simple rules that she’d refused to compromise. Those rules had pitted her against her bosses once or twice, but nothing that could’ve had led to her attempted murder.

She’d be a pariah among her colleagues now. There’d be no help from other agencies if they believed she’d become a rat. Agents were often bribed or blackmailed, good agents were coaxed and wooed by alternate employers, but if your agency put out a hit it suggested one type of betrayal.

They’d assume she’d gone to the Feds.

_Where are you love?_

She had less than three hours to plan and she couldn’t think past the implications of a single phone call. Blowing out an agitated breath, she tried to work past the tightness in her lungs, the unsteady rhythm of her pulse. Hazy from pain, feeling the sides of a trap she couldn’t see, she’d risked one call to a number she’d never admit to having memorized.

That Klaus had answered…

Klaus Mikaelson was dangerous. The wealth and reputation of his family even more so. Caroline had collected rumors about him and his syndicate over the years, wanted to get a better feel for who she was working against. But his motivations had always been a mystery to her. Klaus was known for the perfection of his hits, the absolutely untraceable means he used to kill.

Caroline dealt mostly in information and the occasional theft to keep things interesting. Yet somehow, they’d worked against each other multiple times over the years. She knew just how ruthless he could be in reaching a goal, and he was rarely thwarted.

The first time they’d met she’d locked him in a wine cellar as she’d slipped away with a security tape they’d both been after. Enzo had toasted her balls and avoided commenting on her mussed hair and lipstick. Later, rumors had circulated that Klaus had bought the villa, wine collection included. Caroline had never been able to substantiate that claim, but he had sent her a bottle of wine two weeks later. She’d been uncertain how to feel that he’d known the address of her the agency, the knowing glances of fellow agents, but the bottle had been a particularly good vintage.

She’d split it with Enzo.

Caroline had brushed off her partners teasing, and simply passed on a job or two that would have put her in Europe, Klaus’ usual stomping grounds. But she couldn’t avoid Europe forever and the following year, he’d finally paid her back, walking away with documents she’d been sent to collect. That particular evening had involved a terrible race through a sewer and rats, which she’d been furious about.

Then he’d sent he an apology note and replaced her shoes. She’d have returned them, wine was one thing and expensive shoes that fit were another, except not even Enzo’s expert tech skills had found so much of a whiff of an address. Caroline hadn’t known if she wanted to be pissed or charmed.

Then he just kept… popping up.

A stolen dance in Paris. Earrings in Prague. The motorcycle ride through Rome that would have been romantic if not for the bullets and his cursing in her ear she’d sped through the streets. And underneath it all was the driving competition that flavored every interaction.

Caroline was willing to admit she could be incredibly petty, but there was just something about the narrow-eyed frustration on Klaus’ face that mingled so pleasingly with his grudging respect that delighted her. Not that he made it easy. She’d only managed to surprise him a few times after that first night in South America.

But regardless of how charming Klaus could be, she’d never once made the mistake of assuming that the attraction between them would come before their business.

She’d never let him kiss her again.

But it’d been that night in Paris, when she’d been pressed close to the heat and scent of him, his hands hot against her skin that he’d made her a low voiced offer that had nearly made her stumble. She’d been watching for an exit, not from Klaus though perhaps she should’ve been, but from the security that was hunting the memory card tucked into her bra.

_You’d be safe with me._

She’d laughed incredulously once she’d gotten her footing. It was one thing to hope he wouldn’t betray her in these personal moments he kept stealing, these little nudges where he worked to dig beneath her armor to the real Caroline. But to trust him?

His lips had curved, heat bleeding into his eyes as he traced her lips with his gaze and he’d offered her a night instead. For all the heat and innuendo there had been a surprising lack of sexual intent in his eyes. She’d been tempted to brush it off as a strange whim, his attempt to follow up on the promise his kiss had made to her inside a wine cellar in a jungle, but something about his eyes had stopped her.

Five years later and she was on Klaus’ couch in the middle of Prague, wondering if Enzo had erased her life from the agency servers, if her safe houses had been compromised. It would take her time to create a new identity, and she needed to disappear until she could figure out a plan. But for every single contingency, for every conversation she needed to dig through for hints, somehow she didn’t expect betrayal from Klaus.

Not for another four hours.

She must have ended up dozing, because the sound of a key turning a lock brought her wide awake. Her fingers curled around the gun she’d left on the floor, adrenaline giving her the strength to sit up, and she sucked in a pained breath just as the door opened. She stared at Klaus as he stepped into the room, watched him take her in with a flick of blue eyes, the line of his jaw turning hard.

For a moment Caroline could only drink him in, an unexpected balm on her shattered nerves. He was dressed casually and rumpled, a day’s growth a stubble heavy on his cheeks. She pressed a hand to her side and glanced out the window, taking in the pre-dawn sky. “I still have an hour.”

A noise of disbelief, and he shut the door behind him, sliding the lock back into place. It wasn’t until he set a paper bag onto the table that she realized he’d been carrying it, but he crouched in front of her, temper a flame in his eyes. “Do you need a doctor?”

Taking her finger off the trigger, she shook her head, grimacing as her head swam at the motion. “It’s mostly superficial.”

A raised brow, mouth a tight line of disapproval, his gaze landed on the side she still held. “Superficial?”

“Bruised,” she said softly. Caroline tilted her head, knowing the damage across her forehead and jaw had only worsened since she’d carefully cleaned away the blood. The slow creeping light wouldn’t let her hide much, and she didn’t see the point. “Just a lot of bruises.”

Those dangerous eyes flickered, but whatever thought had just crossed them she couldn’t read. Instead he held out his hand, head angling to the side. “I assume that’s why you decided not to use the bed? Your gun, Caroline. Before you drop it. Unless you’d like to reach over and put it on the table yourself.”

Caroline had won her fight against Tyler and Matt because they’d underestimated her. Klaus hadn’t made that mistake since she’d licked along the fullness of his bottom lip, giving in to the urge to bite his stupid smirk. An urge she’d struggled against repeating for years.

She supposed she could refuse and keep the gun close, but she’d no business on this couch if she couldn’t trust him at least a little. Flicking on the safety, she ignored the satisfaction as he put the gun within her reach.

“I wasn’t going to drop anything,” she said wearily. “And what’s wrong with the couch?”

Klaus shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing, Caroline. I’d simple hoped your scent would linger on my sheets.”

Caroline froze, teeth sliding briefly into her lip. “I thought this was a safe house.”

He stood and stepped away from her. “For you, it is.”

“Klaus,” she said slowly, eyes wide as her gaze darted around the room with a new perspective. “This isn’t your… surely don’t live here? I’m being hunted.”

“Occasionally I enjoy winters here. And I’m fully aware of your current situation, love. Even if they managed to track you here, it’d be a terrible folly to attack me on my turf. Particularly when a few of my siblings are also in the city.”

For a moment, her inability to take a steady breath had nothing to do with her ribs and everything to do with Klaus. The foolish, foolish man. Pushing the blanket aside, she braced one hand on the couch in preparation to stand up, carefully shifting her legs until her feet touched the floor. A moment later, and Klaus had planted himself back in front of her.

“What are you doing?”

She glared, ignoring the faux calmness of his voice. “Leaving.”

“And how do you intend to manage that?”

Caroline scowled at how he’d blocked her from standing. “Through the front door. The same way I came in.”

Unexpectedly, he sat on the edge of the coffee table, bracketing her knees with his thighs. She straightened as best she could, ignoring the tug on her side. His gaze was narrowed, something dangerous and hunter sharp threaded through his eyes. “What did you expect to happen when you called me, Caroline? That you’d catch your breath and then simply disappear?”

“Yes.”

A rumble of disbelief, fingers flexing against his knees, as if he wanted to reach for her. “That’s unacceptable.”

Caroline pressed her lips together and struggled to hold back the biting comment that sat on the tip of her tongue. Klaus had invited her, his professional enemy if not his personal advisory, into his home. She’d never have come here if she’d known, but she had, and he’d somehow changed the balance between them.

Again.

The skin across his cheekbones tightened, temper blazing across his gaze. “Yesterday, Mason Lockwood staged a hostile takeover of your precious agency. There were nine contracted hits on the market for current agents, and as of five hours ago, all but two had been filled.”

Pain sharp and jagged wrenched in her chest and she swallowed heavily. “Enzo?”

Something very much like jealousy flared across his face before disappearing. “Alive, last I’d heard. He seems adept at giving the Salvatores the slip.”

Eyes sliding shut in relief, they snapped open when he spoke again.

“I received a call from Damon Salvatore three hours ago.”

“Why?” She questioned, brows bunching together. “He hates you.”

“The same reason I imagine the contract on your life was left on my desk twenty minutes before you called me.”

A hundred possibilities darted through her mind, and it rocked her that in not one of them did she expect him to betray her. She didn’t trust his family, had no reason to believe the company he helped run would protect her, but Klaus? Somehow he’d wiggled far enough past her armor that she actually trusted him.

The slow, curling smile on his lips was so satisfied that she realized she hadn’t kept her thoughts off her face. Irritated, struggling to catch her balance after her world had been upended, she set her teeth in frustration. “You think it’s a warning.”

“I haven’t been subtle in my attempts to woo you, Caroline. Although it does speak to a particular type of stubbornness on your part that Damon Salvatore has noticed what my intentions are when you have not.”

Her spine snapped straight for a single heartbeat before she grimaced and hunched over, grunting through the shooting pain. “I don’t find that funny.”

“I’m hardly joking,” he replied tautly. She watched his fingers flex in agitation, but he didn’t reach for her. “I admit that at first I hardly expected this to be more than a fleeting fascination. I was amused and annoyed at that stunt you pulled in the wine cellar. Irritated at myself for falling for it, regardless of how the feel and taste of you lingered on my tongue.”

She glanced up through watering eyes, and scowled. “You were an ass, and you deserved every hour you spent in that cellar.”

Klaus laughed softly and carefully reached over, delicately pushing a frizzed curl behind her ear. “It only added to the intrigue that you avoided me after. Another woman would have capitalized on her success, attempted to push her momentary  victory for more.”

Satisfied that straightening slowly wouldn’t cause more damage, she shook her head. “That would’ve meant underestimating you, and I make a point not to do that.”

“I admire that about you. It is a trait I find to be as equally sexy as it is frustrating. As is your loyalty.”

She bit the corner of her mouth nervously, stomach flipping as he eyes dipped to track her teeth against her lip. “What did Damon say?”

“He wanted to be sure that I understood any offer of sanctuary or offer of placement would be considered a direct act against The Agency.” Klaus’ eyes gleamed, lips curling into a predatory smile. “I believe I will enjoy ripping out his tongue one day.”

She shuddered at the visual. “That couldn’t possibly be an actual worry. I don’t do contract killings, and your agency handles thirty percent of all hits in Europe.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were that curious regarding our market share, love.”

Caroline didn’t flinch. “You kept involving yourself in my work. Why wouldn’t I be curious?”

“Our introduction was a bit serendipitous. I was doing a favor for a friend. Thankfully, he was more amused than annoyed by my predicament, not that it’d have mattered. The truth is that it was less the jobs that appealed to me, Caroline, as much as the chance to encounter you. However, I think we can both agree that I have a knack for both worlds, hmm?”

“I’m admitting nothing,” she grumbled. His dimples deepened and she took a careful breath. “Klaus, they will hunt me. You know this. I don’t want to involve your family. Silas…”

“Silas has his hands full, Caroline. His last little assassination had an unfortunate bit of collateral damage. Kol is unlikely to forgive him that death, and should he step foot onto this continent, hunting you will be the least of his worries.”

She stared at him. She’d seen this cool eyed negotiator before, had witnessed firsthand his intractable will. It’d been the reason she’d ended up in sewer, how he’d managed to maneuver himself onto the stolen bike she’d raced through Rome. Both times she’d surprised him, and both times she’d been unable to shake him from her thoughts for weeks after.

“Why does it sound like you’ve been working on this for years?”

“Because I have,” Klaus said simply, easily. “Since Paris. Every other encounter has merely honed the edges of my desire, until having you in every aspect in my life is the only acceptable outcome. But until my phone rang seven hours ago and I heard your exhausted voice, I wasn’t sure I’d manage it.”

Caroline angled her chin into a stubborn line. “Even if I’d be willing to consider it, you realize I’m now a pariah.”

A small, curling smile that spoke of a hundred things, he cupped her face carefully between his palms. “You’ll find, Caroline, that your reputation is not so easy to ruin. But since I intended to keep you for myself, it hardly matters. If necessary, my reputation will suffice for us both.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything,” she said firmly, even as she leaned into his hold. “And I won’t until I talk to Enzo.”

A faint grimace, but his thumb brushed carefully over her bruised cheekbone. “If you will stay here, with me, until you are healed, I will arrange for your friend to stay somewhere safe.”

“I don’t like being blackmailed.”

“Think of it as a compromise,” Klaus murmured as he let his hands drop. “If you are here, so am I.”

“How is that a compromise?”

He reached behind him and set the brown paper bag in her lap. “It means we won’t have to argue just yet about the fact that I intend to kill every person who was complacent with your probable death. Particularly when so many of them appear to be your ex-coworkers.”

Caroline scowled. “Is this what you meant by being safe?”

His eyes burned hot, gaze dragging down the line of her until he reached her bare feet. “I’m sure we’ll argue about that too. Eat your breakfast sweetheart, I’m going to fetch a few things before I check those ribs. Then we can have a discussion regarding the fact that there is only one bed.”

Rolling her eyes, she opened the bag and bit her lip at the sight of her favorite breakfast pastry. They really were going to have several arguments. But Klaus had laid his feelings bare, seemingly content for the time being with her slow growing trust. He was right, it was a significant chink in her armor. Once her ribs healed, she supposed she could try to slip away.

Fiddling with the bag, Caroline glanced in the direction he’d gone and made a decision. She didn’t want to run, which was a problem she’d have to look at later. She’d give herself this chance to heal and let him try to convince her to stay. If she needed to clean up this mess on her own, she would, she didn’t need Klaus to protect her.

And if he thought she’d be sharing that bed with him, then they really were going to fight.

Her lips curved just a hair.

She looked forward to it.


End file.
